The COOPSCO network of cooperatives, which operates retail locations in the majority of Quebec’s francophone educational institutions, has selected Mirada Media to develop and deploy an in-store and point-of-sale digital signage network in the institutions it serves.

Mirada Media, a Montreal-based digital signage integrator and software developer, was recently chosen by the Fédération québécoise des coopératives en milieu scolaire to provide FQCMS with project and content management solutions for its in-store digital signage network at cooperatives in the educational sector, which operate under the COOPSCO banner.

The COOPSCO network, which includes 60 cooperatives with over 100 outlets inside French-speaking high schools, colleges and universities in Quebec, will be rolling out LCD screens powered by a custom version of Mirada Media’s ChannelView player and content management system at participating school supply and book stores, clothing boutiques and cafeterias. COOPSCO chose to deploy digital signage to support existing media channels and have it as an essential part of its integrated marketing communications strategy.

“It was important for us to boost our message frequency, and printed material does not always give us this flexibility,” says Paul Rondeau, merchandising director at FQCMS/COOPSCO. “The Web is good for us, but we must wait for customers to come visit us. On the other hand, the electronic displays have the reverse effect. We can blast messages to our customers and provide support to our website.
“Our first goal is to have the opportunity to advertise products quickly and in a visually dynamic way,” says Rondeau. “By installing a digital signage system, we have managed to better inform our customers with a very short turnaround time. On the client side, we’re realizing that the signage interests them and that they’re eager to know about new promotions. It’s a good way to capture their attention.”

While digital signage is used primarily to promote products and specials, a significant part of the content is also dedicated to informing members about the cooperatives’ events, initiatives and profit-sharing program.

Although one of the goals of cooperatives is to work together for the mutual benefit of members, COOPSCO’s diverse locations and large footprint necessitated some content independence. Mirada Media customized its ChannelView web-based content management system to allow the Fédération to post ads to a collective media bank, from which store managers are able to select individual media files to display according to their unique marketing strategies. The ability to display certain ads may be restricted by the Fédération in order to accommodate time-sensitive promotional campaigns such as limited-time or seasonal offers. Managers are automatically notified of new content postings via system emails and are able to mark items as ‘read’ to better manage their campaigns.

Mirada Media will be including the functionality developed for COOPSCO into the next release of its flagship ChannelView digital signage software offering, slated for Fall 2010.